1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device, an operation-mode control method, and a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
The number types of devices connected to a network and and the number of such devices have increased, and is believed to increase in the future but be unlikely to decrease. Devices, which are connected to a network, consume the electric power even though users do not operate the decices; therefore, there is demand for reduction in the power consumption. For such demand, the EU imposes the requirement for making design (Ecodesign) in consideration of the environment to facilitate energy saving, and this regulation is called Erp directive.
The Erp directive Lot 6 (revised in 2013) defines that, with regard to devices manufactured after 2017, the devices should automatically transition to the off mode (also called the shutdown mode) if the wired network is shut down and all the wireless network ports are terminated. The off mode is the operation mode where there is a physical connection with the commercial power source while the power source of the entire device is turned off. That is, if a communication is disabled wirelessly or with a wired line, the device transitions to the off mode so that the power consumption is reduced.
According to the above directive, devices that include a network port and that have a remote restart function are within the application range. Therefore, multifunction peripherals or single-function printers, which have been exempt from the regulation, are also subjected to the regulation. If a device simply transitions to the off mode, a user needs to restart the device when the user desires to use the device while the device is in the off mode (usually presses the main power switch).
Furthermore, according to the above-described directive, devices are required to automatically transition to the off mode even if the LAN cable is unintentionally removed. The transition to the off mode in a case where the LAN cable is unintentionally removed is not the state transition in accordance with the user's intension. Therefore, there is a possibility that the user does not notice that the device is in the off mode (thinks that the device is in the energy-saving mode or a more active operation mode) although the LAN cable is connected, and users try to print out with the device. In this case, after the main power switch is pressed by the user, it takes a long time to enable operations, which may result in a degradation of usability.
Thus, a technique for making a multifunction peripheral, which has transitioned to the off mode, transition to the standby mode in response to a user's print request is devised (for example, see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2014-164625).
However, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2014-164625, it is assumed that a phone line is connected to a device as the host computer performs state transition control using the phone line; therefore, there is a problem in that the technique is not usable in devices that are not compatible with phone lines or in the environment where there is no phone line.